New Video: Young Jeezy Featuring Future, ‘Way Too Gone’

Let Young Jeezy take “y’all bitchez back to ’05” (but really back to only about a month ago on his recent Hustlerz Ambition tour) in the video for his epic tribute to all-night partying, “Way Too Gone.” From the looks of it, Jeezy had his go-to West Coast director, TAJ, bring some cameras to his L.A. show, and the result is a black-and-white, strobed-out journey behind the scenes and on stage at a Young Jeezy show. Normally I’m never too impressed with music videos made with tour footage, but there’s something about TAJ’s film treatment and how his use of the Hype Williams strobe effect builds throughout the video to match Mike Will’s layered prog-rap production that is really working for me here. He ultimately freaks out on the effect to the point where it’s hard to focus on any of the images, but that’s kind of just like that point in the night where you know you should just call it quits and go to sleep because the room is upside down, but you’re already “way too gone” so you might as well keep it going.

Watch Young Jeezy’s “Way Too Gone” video after the jump.

I don’t know if it’s my obsession with Rich Boy’s “Let’s Get This Paper,” but these huge, over-the-top rap songs essentially need a black-and-white video; anything less would be undignified. “Way Too Gone” doesn’t quite deliver on the fully conceptualized thematics like “Let’s Get This Paper,” but there are about 45 frames of DJ Quik C-walking across the stage, so that instantly makes it my favorite video of the year so far. Post-ATLien Future lends some competently Auto-Tuned bars about mixing lean to the song. He doesn’t make an appearance in the video, but that’s OK — Warren G, who has a production credit on Jeezy’s latest TM:103, shows up a couple times. There’s actually a video out there of Jeezy, Quik and the Regulator working in the studio together, and so far “Leave You Alone” and “Higher Learning” are the only tracks we’ve seen released. So hopefully some more work from those sessions will surface, because I really like what Young Jeezy cooks up when he takes a trip out West.